Genetic Science

Sex, Time, and Power offers a tantalizing answer to an age-old question: Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? The key, according to Shlain, is female sexuality. Drawing on an awesome breadth of research, he shows how, long ago, the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species. Natural selection allowed for reconfiguration of hormonal cycles, entraining women with the periodicity of the moon - and imbuing women with the concept of time.

In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a prehuman skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution.

As a child, rare and unusual animals, especially cryptid creatures, always fascinated Carter Wilde. Now that he’s an eccentric billionaire and runs the largest conglomerate of high-tech companies all over the world, he can finally achieve his wildest dream of building the most incredible theme park ever conceived on the planet...Cryptid Zoo. Even though there have been apparent problems with the project, Wilde still decides to send some of his marketing employees and their families on a forced vacation to assess the theme park in preparation for Opening Day.

In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How?

As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference.
It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters—from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation—resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation—humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just
during the last million years—but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions.
This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death.
Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world—on this planet and perhaps on others. Readers of this book will be equipped scientifically, intellectually, and emotionally to face whatever the future holds.

Alex knew the risks of revealing how special he was. But at twelve years old, a single mistake brought the world government to his doorstep and shattered his reality. His mother died that day, and his twin brother, Levi, was gone, leaving Alex orphaned and alone. Now, five years later, Alex is still searching for Levi, determined to rebuild what he’d once had. He’s stayed in the shadows, doing everything he can to avoid the government’s attention. However, just as he uncovers a promising lead on his brother’s whereabouts, he’s spotted by the police.

In November 2018, the world was shocked to learn that two babies had been born in China with DNA edited while they were embryos - as dramatic a development in genetics as the cloning of Dolly the sheep was in 1996. In this book, Hank Greely, a leading authority on law and genetics, tells the fascinating story of this human experiment and its consequences. Greely explains what Chinese scientist He Jiankui did, how he did it, and how the public and other scientists learned about and reacted to this unprecedented genetic intervention.

As biologist Jeremy Griffith explains in THE Interview (which psychiatrist Professor Harry Prosen described as “the most important interview of all time”), while we humans lacked the explanation for our two-million-year corrupted human condition, we had no choice but to deny that our distant ape ancestors lived in a state of cooperative and loving innocence. But with the good reason for our corrupted condition now finally found, our species’ original state of innocence can at last be admitted.

In this fifth and final book in the series, Dex and Frida dive back into OVERTAKEN ONLINE, after a month out in the real world. They are met by a realm in shambles. Frequent tornadoes plague the planet, leaving destruction in their wake; the daemonorgs are amping up the pressure after the loss of the Colossus; and decisions made by Commander Darius while Dex was away have massively derailed their chances of winning the war.

After surviving the onslaught of week one, Lucius has something to prove. He seeks to train under a living legend in hopes of being ready for the goblin siege. He isn’t the only one looking to train. As his competition grows in strength, he must push himself harder than ever before. Then, he unexpected happens. Players start to unlock abilities. There is only one thing to do when facing impossible odds - train harder!

Ty Wilcox doesn’t really believe in superheroes. Then, one is murdered right in front of him. Follow his adventures in this bundle featuring three books in the Enhancer series: Enhancer: Book One, Enhancer: Book Two, and Enhancer: Book Three. The stories are set in a cyberpunk alternate future.

Los autores del bestseller Supercerebro nos invitan modificar la predisposición genética hacia las enfermedades al cambiar nuestra dieta y nuestro estilo de vida.

Our Political Nature is the first book to reveal the hidden roots of our most deeply held moral values. It shows how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. These clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests.

When Dr. Maeve Leander escaped Area 51 with her unusual family, she knew the safety net provided by the President of the United States would only be short lived. And she was right. On the run, new allies join Maeve in her fight for her family's survival. But with each new person, the risk to Alvie and the triplets grows as do the questions: What do these new people want? Why are they helping them and what is their end game? In all the uncertainty surrounding her, Maeve is sure of only one thing: she will do everything in her power to keep her family safe.

>In Journey of the Universe Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker tell the epic story of the universe from an inspired new perspective, weaving the findings of modern science together with enduring wisdom found in the humanistic traditions of the West, China, India, and indigenous peoples. The authors explore cosmic evolution as a profoundly wondrous process based on creativity, connection, and interdependence, and they envision an unprecedented opportunity for the world's people to address the daunting ecological and social challenges of our times.

More than a century has passed since Bethany Anne’s Armada left the Federation to tackle the Gödel and the Kurtherians head-on. In her absence, have certain parties within the Federation grown too big for their boots? The Federation Council has become engorged with corrupt representatives from the corporate families who believe their wealth entitles them to subvert the principles the Federation was founded upon. Bethany Anne returns alone in ass-kicking mode, determined to oust the families hell-bent on taking over - but have the families become too powerful, even for her?

The Queen Bitch returns to the planet of her birth, and gathers the heroes who rose up to defend Irth in her absence. Meanwhile, the Federation is under attack from all sides. While Bethany Anne’s rage scorches the Irth, Lance gets to experience the unity he always dreamed of. Long awaited family reunions must take place under the shadow of the final war. Old faces and new faces come together to fight for what is theirs....and no one is immune from the consequences of war. Don’t miss out on the universe-shattering conclusion to The Kurtherian Endgame series.

With warmth and compassion, Denworth weaves together past and present, field biology and cutting-edge neuroscience, to show how our bodies and minds are designed to make friends, the process by which social bonds develop, and how a drive for friendship underpins human (and nonhuman) society. With its refreshingly optimistic vision of the evolution of human nature, this book puts friendship at the center of our lives.

Join us on a journey through how we understand the universe, from its most basic particles and forces to planets, stars, and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos. Conflicting notions about our place in the universe are defined, defended, and critiqued from scientific, philosophical, and religious viewpoints. The authors' engaging and witty style addresses what fine tuning might mean for the future of physics and the search for the ultimate laws of nature.

It's accepted wisdom today that human beings have permanently damaged the natural world, causing extinction, deforestation, pollution, and of course climate change. But in Inheritors of the Earth, biologist Chris Thomas shows that this obscures a more hopeful truth - we're also helping nature grow and change. Human cities and mass agriculture have created new places for enterprising animals and plants to live, and our activities have stimulated evolutionary change in virtually every population of living species.

With irresistibly persuasive vigor, David Shenk debunks the long-standing notion of genetic giftedness, and presents dazzling new scientific research showing how greatness is in the reach of every individual. DNA does not make us who we are. Forget everything you think you know about genes, talent, and intelligence, he writes. In recent years, a mountain of scientific evidence has emerged suggesting a completely new paradigm: not talent scarcity, but latent talent abundance.